Attempting to rid culture from the game

[Barchan]

Originally posted by vondrack
6) Effect of the Railroads: how come that railroads improve the effect of mining and irrigation? I mean - they have nothing to do with it! Yet another weirdness in this weird game.

I think the idea is that with railroads you can move a lot more stuff in less time, and this improves the efficiency with which you can get the raw materials (crops and ore) to secondary markets for processing. This improved efficiency leads to greater overall levels of production, hence the bonuses.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Barchan
I think the idea is that with railroads you can move a lot more stuff in less time, and this improves the efficiency with which you can get the raw materials (crops and ore) to secondary markets for processing. This improved efficiency leads to greater overall levels of production, hence the bonuses.

Yep, sure, I know the design idea behind, of course (almost the whole post of mine was not meant seriously). But taken wordly, the fact that I am able to transport the crops from the field to the city by RR, does not increase the productivity of the crop field itself. It affects the turnaround times and that kind of stuff. The productivity rises with fertilizers, better irrigation systems etc. To accept it as a reasonable game concept, you have to imagine lots of things "behind the scene". And that was exactly what I was trying to illustrate by my silly "10 reasons" - one has to use his/her imagination to see various concepts as "reasonable".

BTW - I would agree with most of your post on flipping. Some fine ideas there, even if "defecting workers" would probably make Coracle simply adjust his posts...

The problem is that it is difficult to distinguish between the conquest time and the peace time. If you allow to completely prevent the flip with a strong enough garrison, then you would have no flips in the peacetime - everybody would simply station troops enough in the border cities. Well, maybe, it could be taken into account if it is wartime or not... the whole thing is a bit complicated...

If you agree with the border shifts, then it is difficult to omit shifts involving cities - otherwise, you could simply build a belt of small 1-pop border cities that would "hold the border" for you.

You (and Coracle) have my full support as far as an adjustment of the flip mechanics work - like troops not vanishing etc. Even if it is not a big deal for me (I think I have never lost a strong garrison to a flip, just one or two units at most), I do admit that making the resisting citizens damage the garrison, leave the city... whatever... might make the game more "realistic" (which is what so many people apparently want), while not changing the game balance significantly - maybe even improving it.

Let's discuss what can be done to improve the concept instead of just repeating "the way it is done it's wrong" (although there were some good discussions on this topic in the past).

Should we do some serious debate on that here, I promise to compile our ideas into a single, possibly multi-option proposal we could use as a start of the "To Firaxis: City Flipping Adjustment Ideas" thread that would be free of trivial whining and full of technically feasible solutions to what so many disagree with.

[Coracle]

Speaking of vanishing troops, I saw an example of NINE military units disappearing when a town oif '1' flipped. That is absurd. It also would simply end a game in defeat for the victim. More time wasted.

Culture Flipping borders and cities is bad enough in concept. But it is even worse in those game mechanics that also make a mockery of any semblance of reality or history.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Coracle
Speaking of vanishing troops, I saw an example of NINE military units disappearing when a town oif '1' flipped. That is absurd. It also would simply end a game in defeat for the victim. More time wasted.

Culture Flipping borders and cities is bad enough in concept. But it is even worse in those game mechanics that also make a mockery of any semblance of reality or history.

Again... an awesome example of the criticism that leads to nowhere. Do you propose any solution to the problem? Or just venting off your frustration?

[MarkG]

he is venting for the last 9 months and he's got plenty more

vondrack, please, the next time you have a post of such fun value as the "10 points", please (again) sent it as an article for the column

http://apolyton.net/misc/column/submit.shtml

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by whosurdaddy
And another thing. I have a size 1 city with 6 legions garrisoned in it that just flipped. I thought if u had more military units in a city than the population, it will never flip?

Effective resistance = number of foreign nationals plus number of culture tiles overlapping in the working radius of the city.

Then the garrison should be 1x - 3x depending on the proximity of the capitals, resistance, the overall culture, etc.

[Zachriel]

Taking Sidon on the Persian mainland, our trusty marines will secure and build an airport (disband less experienced units). This will allow luxuries and resources, but more importantly, we can now funnel huge numbers of military units into Sidon.



(Our huge military force has nothing to fear from civilian resistance. Count eight resisters, one for the population of Sidon and seven for overlapping culture boundaries. Our forces total many dozens.)

[zulu9812]

My my, we seemed to have stirred up quite the hornet's nest, haven't we? As far as a captured city flipping back, there is a very simple way to prevent this:

ATTACK IN OVERWHELMING NUMBERS

That's hardly new and innovative, is it? In fact, it's been a basic military principal since time began. Attacking one city with a large stack allows me to take that city in one turn. Resistance will also only last one turn. Once I've garrisoned that city, the large stack moves on and attacks the nest closest city, again taking it in one turn. This then decreases the chance of the first city flipping even further. By maintaining a solid line of attack, I am able to keep newly captured cities close to my territory rather than stringing out my attacks, thus still further reducing the chance of flipping. In all this, I never attack with anything less than 8 units - even for size-1 towns. The average task-force is 15 units, some stacks a little smaller, but some a little bigger.

[MarkG]

ATTACK IN OVERWHELMING NUMBERS

WOW! you should write strategy guides!


yes, civ3 is terrible, it forces you to actually have some real force before geting into a war...

[DrFell]

Originally posted by Barchan
The introduction of culture created a new dimension to the game and forced players, for better or worse, to reevaluate their strategies and focus on formulating new ones.

Indeed, I have modified my war strategies considerably since civ2. Nowadays at least half the time upon capturing a city I'm forced to say 'burn it all to the ground'. I feel like such an enlightened despot.

[spy14]

I've said it before and i'll say it again, "Culture" adds a good new element to the game, especially regarding border expansion. "Flipping" was a stupid thing to include, and it works like it was tacked on after a hard night at the pub...

[Amadan]

Originally posted by Venger
Zulu if I squeezed all the BS from your post it'd delete itself. If you've never had a city flip, then YOU are playing the game wrong. What do you do, garrison 25 units in every captured city? Were Civ2 and Civ NOT real Civ games because they didn't have the asinine pantywaist concept of 'culture'?

Venger

I have rarely had cities flip, and I only maintain a small garrison in each.

Maintain a culture of 5:1, and its never a problem!

[whosurdaddy]

Has anyone read my suggestions near the top of this page on ways to try and get culture flipping out of the game? That was the reason i started this thread, not to debate whether culture flipping is good or bad. There are some who will like it (a.k.a. the insane) and some who dont. So will those who do like it stop putting post after post into this thread and let the rest of us try and figure out if there is any way to get this insane concept of our own games that we play. I think i'll put my ideas into a different thread so people will actually see them and i can get feedback rather than have them get lost amongst all these pro-culture flipping comments.

[Q Classic]

ah.

before i saw the screenshot, i was going to suggest that you just raze the base... or abandon the city, as this one puts it.

but if you need it as a foothold, hm...

yeah, other than pressing your own cultural advantage and attack in overwhelming numbers.

[whosurdaddy]

Originally posted by Barchan


Actually, you are both wrong and right. The French cities in Normandy were full of French nationals, not German nationals. They were garrisoned by German soldiers, but the citizens were French. When the allies landed, they got a lot of assistance from the French, both active (i.e. French resistance destroying railroad tracks and setting ambushes) and passive (not following German directives, pointing out German defenses and fortifications). So, to a certain extent, the concept of culture flipping isn't entirely non-historical.

Of course the cities of France in ww2 had French nationals in them in real life!!! The problem is when we make scenarios, if we start the scenario off after the german conquest of France, we are going to have to place the French cities as German cities, with german nationals (you cannot place german controlled cities with french citizens in them in the editor), so when the allies take normandy as a foothold, and do not immediately conquer everything else, IT WILL FLIP TO THE GERMANS taking the d-day invasion force with it. That was just an example of how culture flipping will break down many a scenario.